Rehan Akbar

Formalizing an abstract architecture for the alternative data source utilized during system availability under intrusion threat

The main objective of the research is to formalize an abstract architecture for the alternative data source that is meant to be used during system availability under intrusion threat. For this purpose, three possible designed semantics have been identify and considered. The security and performance parameters that are required to be exhibited by the alternative data source have been identified. Qualitative analysis is carried out in terms of the identified security and performance parameters, among the considered design semantics to select the potentially secure and suitable design semantic. The selected design semantic becomes the basis of formalizing an abstract architecture for the alternative data source during system availability under intrusion threat scenario. (6 pages)

Graphical authentication based on anti-shoulder surfing mechanism

Authentication is one of the most important mechanisms to ensure system accessibility by legitimate users. Various authentication tools exist based on numerous techniques. Distinguishing factors of such authentication tools are the underlying passwords that they imply. These passwords can be textual based, graphical based, hardware based or biometric based. All such password types have their pros and cons. The principle focus of this research is picture-based graphical passwords, since they are easy to remember and can overcome the limitations of using long textual passwords for stronger security. However, mostly the picture-based passwords suffer from shoulder surfing attacks and are therefore vulnerable. If this vulnerability is overcome then such graphical passwords are highly useful because of their strength and ease of use as compared to long textual passwords. The main objective of this research is to propose and develop a picture-based authentication scheme with anti shoulder surfing capability. The proposed authentication scheme consists of both password creation and usage. Both these stages are supported by specialized technical constructs that overcome the anti shoulder surfing attack even if the attacker is standing next to the legitimate user.

Mechanism to continue system availability during cyber threat scenario

It is known that cyber attacks on the application systems causes denial of services to avoid confidentiality and integrity compromise. The system remains inaccessible until it is completely recovered from that threat. This unavailability of the system is very important to handle as it results in huge monetary loss for organizations and their customers suffer with bad quality services. The main research objective is to design a framework for sustaining the systems availability at application level during the period of cyber attack. A designed framework is comprised of two components that propose one of the potential solutions for handling the systems unavailability problem while it is under attack. Ad hoc data migration is the first component that transfers the information to the alternative systems data storage when the attack is detected. Secured authentication is another very important component that compliments the alternatively available system to provide the secured information services to the end user. Secured authentication is designed differently with more strength compared to the conventional textual password authentication scheme so that the malicious users can be restricted from accessing the alternatively available system.

A meta‐model of software development project states behavioral study of software projects

Software development project during its lifecycle passes through various states. These states describe the condition, status, and behavior of software projects. In the present study, these states are defined based on the various activities performed during project lifecycle like initial environment setup, requirement analysis, coding, testing, problem resolution, and completion. The taxonomy of these states and substates is defined, and a project states meta‐model is designed. The meta‐model is composed of states and substates of the software projects. Detailed case studies of real projects have been conducted to validate the states of the meta‐model. Evidences are collected; and events and observations are recorded about existence of the states, execution flow, duration, and behavior. The evidences, events, and observations are presented in the sequence to translate them into results. Results show that project states exist in all projects such that each software project passes through these states serially and in particular cases, a few states may exist in parallel. Project states show the status and progress of the software projects. It is found that issues in software projects can effectively be resolved by performing micro project management activities of the projects states. Project states meta‐model provides basic structure for deriving new models.

Review of global software development (GSD) trends in Malaysia and future directions

In IT industry, global software development (GSD) is becoming popular since the past few decades. GSD is the process whereby companies are doing development of software at different locations. GSD is adopted by the IT companies to get the advantages of multi-site development, reduce development cost and access large group of skilled labor. Despite the leverage benefits of GSD, several challenges are also associated with it. A number studies have addressed disciplined processes and standards to cope with these challenges. These studies are conducted in different parts of the world but not particularly in Malaysia. The literature on the use of software practices due to GSD in Malaysia is still limited. Therefore, the present study reviews the existing work on GSD and suggests further research in this area in Malaysian context. We present our future research plan for Malaysian software companies that are involved in GSD and project outsourcing. The findings of future researches will help to know the trends of software processes in Malaysia as well as the GSD factors that affect the selection of a process. Moreover, present study also presents a preliminary framework for process selection.

A short review of Global Software Development (GSD) and latest software development trends

Global Software Development (GSD) has made revolutionary changes in the conventional software development practices. Conventional software market has entered into a new era of smart handheld devices, operating systems like iOS and android, mobile applications, games, and social networking applications. The meanings and building blocks of utility software, operating systems and computers systems have been completely changed. A number of modern and latest tools and technologies are available in the market. Software development has been faster as ever before and market is flooded with uncountable software applications. In such circumstances, traditional approaches of software development are unable to meet the requirements of these latest trends in the IT industry. Consequently, agile methodologies which are designed for conventional software development have rapidly replaced the traditional approaches of software development. The legacy design of agile processes needs to modify to make them suitable for latest trends in software development. This paper discusses these trends in context of GSD and emphasizes on the need of tailoring existing agile processes to face the latest software development trends.

Software development process tailoring for small and medium sized companies

Software development process tailoring is an emerging practice in todays IT industry. A limited number of research works have been published in this area. The existing process tailoring approaches describe similar set of operations and do not provide proper guidelines on performing process tailoring. These tailoring approaches mainly focus on large companies and tailor only one or two agile methods instead of providing specific guidelines on tailoring agile based methodologies. Unlike large companies, attention has not been given to small and medium sized companies. The present study addresses this limitation, identifies process tailoring operations, key processes of agile based methodologies and uses them for tailoring processes for small and medium sized companies. Qualitative research methods are used to identify and validate tailoring operations and key processes of agile based methodologies. The results show that performing these tailoring operations to tailor key agile based processes is an effective and applicable process tailoring approach for small and medium sized companies. The outcome of the present study would provide basis for formulating process tailoring framework for small and medium sized companies.

Software development project states and project behavior

The behavior of software development projects is a characteristic phenomenon that is difficult to study and analyze. The behavior of a software project is a true indicator of its progress and condition. Unfortunately, very less attention has been given to this important aspect of the software projects and rarely any research study has been presented in this regard. The present study addresses this limitation of existing research work and analyzes the behavior of software development projects based on the project states. Project states and their sub-states for the first time in the present study have been derived from the project lifecycle phases. The behavior of the project states have been analyzed based on the risks faced by the projects and project client factors. A case study of real projects has been conducted to validate the project states and their behavior. The project states reflect the true behavior of the software development projects and determine the status and progress of the project. Initial findings of the study have been presented in this paper which will be followed by publishing more detailed findings on the project states in upcoming paper.